5 Easy Ways to Ditch the Tax Day Blues and Rest Easier

If you’re anything like most American adults, you’ve been dreading tax day for awhile now, and for good reason! Nobody likes the thought of having to fork over their hard-earned money to Uncle Sam, after all.

But April 18th can have a negative impact on more than just your bank account – all of the stress involved with filing your taxes can also lead to some serious sleep loss, and that means an overall risk of poor health and well-being. Yikes!

So what can you do to avoid setting yourself up for a hit to your health?

Know What Stress Looks Like

Your first step in making sure that you’re not putting yourself at risk for poor health caused by stress-related insomnia is knowing the most common signs of stress. These include:

• Physical or mental tension

• Bouts of anxiety

• Poor concentration

• Sudden apathy or depression

How to Banish Stress for Better Rest

Know that you know what you’re looking for (and up against), your next step is to make some simple lifestyle changes to give stress the boot and sleep like a baby…

Figure out what’s stressing you out: Doing your taxes isn’t the only cause of worries and insomnia, so you need to assess what it is in your life that is causing you fits. Take a good look at how you’re feeling physically and what you’re doing on a daily basis. Are you in constant pain? Has your workload become overwhelming? Once you know what your stressors are, you can take the needed steps to ditch them.

Don’t be afraid to share: Sometimes we can feel like we’re all alone in the world with our problems, but that just isn’t true! If you feel like you’re drowning at work, reach out to your coworkers. If you’re inundated with housework, ask your family to pitch in more with the chores. And don’t forget to take some time out to just enjoy yourself – spending time with friends can be a huge stress reliever.

Rein in negative thinking: Learning to manage your thoughts and keeping them positive has been proven to be an excellent way to keep stress levels down. Keep an eye on how you’re thinking throughout the day (especially at bedtime!) and take the time to turn worries into positive affirmations. For example, thinking “I’ll never get all of this work done,” can be flipped into “I’m on the right track to success.”

Get out there and get active: Exercise can not only help you to blow off some steam, it can also help in the production of “feel good” hormones like endorphins, which will help you to be stress-free. Just be sure to keep more intense physical activity (like cardio and weight training) at least 2 hours before turning in for the night, to help make sure that you’re not too pumped to sleep.

Watch what you eat: We’ve all known for a long time that eating a diet that is free of junk food and refined sugars will help us to stay healthy and keep extra weight off of our frames. But being sure to stay away from an unhealthy diet has also been shown to increase energy levels and decrease stress. Following a diet that is low in sugar, starches, caffeine, and alcohol will keep you stress-free and top-notch.

Making these simple lifestyle changes will help you keep stress at bay, sleep like a log, and ensure that your health and well-being is at peak levels – on Tax Day and every other day of the year!